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Saturday, April 26, 2014

The often very fine line between fact and fiction

An author friend told me not long ago that something he
wrote about in one of his thrillers came true. He was astonished when he saw
the news item. This got me really thinking, because something similar happened
with my romance/thriller, The Tangled Web. Quite a few incidents in The Tangled
Web are factual and there are one or two real people mentioned in it, but there’s
an event I didn’t know about when I wrote the book. It hadn’t become public
knowledge yet, so I simply wrote it down to my vivid author’s imagination.

The incident I’m referring to made headlines around the
world when it took place – about a week after The Tangled Web was published. Let
me stop here for a minute and explain that the primary setting of The Tangled
Web is based on Jamaica and the story is about a government’s ties to a leading
Colombian drug cartel. The headline-making incident was the refusal by the
Jamaican government to comply with a U.S. State Department request for
extradition of “one of the world’s most dangerous drug kingpins.” The drug
kingpin was Christopher Coke, then head of the notorious Shower Posse,
suspected of having committed more than 1,000 drug-related murders in the
United States and Jamaica. As a CBC Canada report stated, “the Shower Posse is
one of the world's most violent criminal gangs and controls an international
weapons and drug-smuggling ring with tentacles reaching into Europe and North
America."

Although my drug kingpin’s tentacles are equally far
reaching or even more so, she’s not a man. She’s a beautiful and ruthless Colombian
drug boss named Maria Echevarría. And here’s where things get really
interesting. I remember when Maria arrived on my computer screen out of nowhere,
hissing at her second in command from across the room, “You live in the lap of
luxury and yet look how you pour a glass of cognac, like a peasant.” I sat back
in my chair staring at the screen and wondering who on earth is she? I didn’t
plan to have any such character. She just kind of muscled her way into the
story of her own accord. As it turns out, there’s a real life Maria, or there
was up until 2012 when Griselda Blanco, also known as "The
Godmother," was assassinated in Colombia. In case you don’t know anything
about Blanco, here’s her story. She was the mentor of some of the famous Colombian
drug lords of the 1980s, including Pablo Escobar. Blanco herself is suspected
of having committed more than 200 murders while transporting cocaine from
Colombia to New York, Miami and Southern California. More about her here http://www.biography.com/people/griselda-blanco-20965407#awesm=~oCzoXCzxU1G7Ru

My friend and I are not the only authors who’ve had
this kind of experience, but it leads you to wonder what is it exactly we
writers tap into when we enter the world of our books? Is it some kind of bank
of universal knowledge? If you’re a writer and have any thoughts on the
subject, I’d love to hear them. Readers, you're welcome to weigh in too.

Glad to know I have company, Linda :) I never heard the term "organic" writer before, but that's a good way to describe these character take-overs. Thanks so much for weighing in! Appreciate your input.

Well, J.P., I was pretty amazed by the story of the senior EPA official who convinced his colleagues he was really working as a covert employee of the CIA, meaning he never showed up for his EPA job but still kept getting paid. I thought having my government assassin, Richard Paladin, work for a secret department of the EPA was farcical. Apparently for many people this is not beyond the realm of possibility. The link to one of several articles in the Washington Post is below.

I just read the Washington Post article, David. Thanks for sharing that example of how authors can inadvertently write about something they're unaware is the truth. The similarity between the EPA employee John C. Beale and your character Richard Paladin is indeed remarkable.

Interesting when we authors hear voices and identify characters that need expression. It's happened to me too. Giving voice, i guess. I don't try to figure it out, I just try to get it down on paper and edit later. All the best - Peter Prasad

Thanks for visiting, Peter. (: Yes, those voices. But who else but a writer understands when you say something like "Gotta go. My characters have been waiting for me on a walkway for hours now."? Guess EL Doctorow was right about writing being a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

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Author, environmental and wildlife advocate, award-winning advertising veteran, sometimes poet, former fashion designer. I blog about fashion history on Fashion Flashbacks, write about whatever comes to mind on my blog and share my other interests on Pinterest. Also connect with me on TwitterGoodreadsLinkedinFacebook